Killing the Cat
by Crazycakes
Summary: [Syaoran & Sakura] It was a feeling they had, that they couldn't shake off. Sakura's friends knew of her secret, but not its contents. And everyone knows that a person gets no answers to an unvoiced question, no matter how much they may wish to hear it.


I haven't written in this fandom for a _long_ time, so that's just my little warning. I know the series like I know the back of my own hand, but this fic may seem a little strange. It skips around to random instances, as if the minor characters were actually musing out loud.

This was written to elaborate on the inquisitive nature of the minor characters. As if they figured something was going on, but had almost no evidence to support it except a strange feeling they all felt. It was written with Chiharu, Naoko, and Rika in mind as the combined point of view, but to me it seemed as if Naoko was the leading conscience. Maybe it's because of her love for magic, but who knows? That's what it felt like to me.

Really, I've always wondered what it would be like if Sakura's friends found out about what she had been doing. I've been looking around for something like it. I'm really very fond of the _Big Reveal_ fics, when they tell people about their magic. I haven't really read anything with her friends as the main focus. This was originally going to be something like that, but it ended up with the characters wondering if there was something going on.

If anyone is wondering how I got the title, it's actually a play on the phrase _curiosity killed the cat_. Sakura's friends are curious about what's going on in her life. They always will be, because they don't know exactly what is going on, and no one will tell them. So they are, essentially, **killing the cat** because of their curiosity.

Anywhoosle, I'm done babbling. Have fun reading my little extended drabble.

---------------------------------------------------------------

"**_It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power."_**– _Alan Cohen_

---------------------------------------------------------------

They know.

They know she's hiding _something_.

She's never around any more to just talk with them. To have a cup of tea. To gossip about their latest crushes. They realize that.

And they can't do a damned thing about it.

As soon as Syaoran came into the picture, they knew. They didn't _know_, but they realized something was going on. Something special. The rivalry between Syaoran and Sakura was spectacular. Legendary. A clash of culture they didn't think actually happened outside of romance novels. They watched the two bicker with growing interest as the weeks wore on. They knew there was something just beneath the surface that no one would tell them. They were confused, and they knew Tomoyo knew what was going on. Sakura didn't _breathe_ without telling Tomoyo what was going on in her life.

Sakura had become a savior overnight.

It was bewildering, actually. Before their endless fourth grade year, she was cheerful and happy. Hardly even recognized her surroundings. Then one day she woke up. It was the only real way her friends could describe it. It started off with little things. She helped the kids who got picked on, would stick up for all of her friends when they were harassed. They didn't know what to make of it. She was still blissfully happy, it was true, but it seemed like she was more aware. Noticing every bit of the goings-on around her that she wouldn't have even blinked at years before.

Naoko asked her about it once. At the end of the year after the disaster at the Nadeshiko festival. They were all confused and shaken about the whole ordeal, and as Sakura walked up to the group, Syaoran's hand in hers, she asked what was going on, a deceptively innocent smile on her face. Her smile was as wide and glowing as it was years ago, when the world was still big and magic still existed in their all-too-eager minds. Nothing like she had been the past few years. Not on edge, not always alert and ready to pounce. Not like the Sakura they were used to seeing nowadays.

Naoko asked, and that smile of hers faltered, however slightly. Syaoran's hand tightened on hers, though it was impossible to see with an untrained eye.

Their eyes knew exactly what to look for. They were as god as professionals in that respect, and they knew. Didn't know _exactly_, of course, but if Naoko ventured into her wild mind and spoke her suspicions out loud, she would have been surprisingly close to the actual truth. But she never once voiced her suspicions, and a person gets no answers to an unvoiced question, however much they may wish to hear it.

Sakura, for all of her many talents, was a horrible liar. When she spoke, her eyes darted back and forth; she fidgeted. She told them, with that sparkling grin on her cheating, deceiving lips, an obscure, veiled tale of the night she had.

Were they to believe that Sakura was just like they were- trapped in their own minds and disoriented 'till dawn? Of course not. Not with Meiling snickering the background and with Tomoyo grinning for all the world like she had a secret to hide.

They were not fools. If anything, they were persistent. They watched, observers of a long, thickly plotted movie. A movie with indecipherable audio that was being viewed through a foggy window; one that they couldn't for the _life_ of them stop watching. It was a movie of calculating demons, of heroes and fools, of love and treachery, all combined together with thinly disguised plot holes and half-finished scenes.

It was irresistible. The friends found themselves caught within the eager pull of the secret that they desperately wanted to know and would never discover, its contents forever protected by only those who deserved to know.

Sakura was their friend. So was Syaoran. So was Tomoyo, and Meiling. So why couldn't they tell a single living soul about their adventures? Did they really think the others had _no idea_ of the strange things that were happening right behind their backs?

They were not blind, just as they were not fools. It was almost an insult, really, how oblivious she thought they were. Yamazaki told lies to a fault, or so it seemed, but his were never ones so cunning and malicious.

…but was it really all as dangerous as they believed it to be? It had to be; why would they keep it a secret all this time? It was an ongoing mystery they couldn't solve.

_Refused_ to solve.

It was true, the answer was as alluring as the question itself, but who would want to hold the burden of such an answer? The denial went against all that they stood for, but they didn't want to know. Couldn't want to know.

They all saw they way Sakura had changed. Very much like her old self, but still so very different. The careless, happy girl they had once known wasn't gone, but she was more subdued, weighted down by the secrets she held.

She didn't bear it alone. They watched the slow incline between Sakura and Syaoran, from rivalry to friendship to endless love. They saw how much closer she had become to Tomoyo, and how she even managed to win over Meiling as a devoted friend. But was their secret really all that it was cracked up to be? Or was it a harmless fantasy that they all pretended to share?

The small group of friends had no doubt about the secret's validity. They knew it was not a force to be trifled with.

They still wanted to know. They never wanted to know. The push and pull of their combined conscience flitted between the grandeur of the knowing and the fear of realization.

In the end, they decided to watch. Just watch. If the hands of fate decided to turn up the volume and grant them access into the theatre, they would enter without so much as a second thought. But until then, they just continued to wait.

Curious. Always curious.


End file.
